


go not abroad for happiness

by elizajane



Series: wandering home [1]
Category: Shetland (TV)
Genre: Family, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Lightly Beta Read, Living Together, M/M, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-07 07:33:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15214232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/pseuds/elizajane
Summary: Maybe it really is that simple, Jimmy thinks, squeezing his eyes shut against the temptation. How did people do this? Before he can bend and break beneath all of the reasons why he shouldn’t Jimmy slides his hand across the space between them and lays his fingers at the warm pulse-point of Duncan’s wrist.





	1. Jimmy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starslaugh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starslaugh/gifts).



> This fic exists because I went looking for it on AO3 and the relationship tag was all but empty. A shout-out to starslaugh for commiserating with me on Twitter about the lack. It was her nudge that got me writing.
> 
> I have all of this work, and all of a sequel, drafted and will be trying to post steadily as I revise. 
> 
> Begins immediately following the final episode of season three (2016). 
> 
> Content Note: Some discussion of the canonical death of Cassie's mother, Fran, who was both Duncan's ex-partner and Jimmy's wife.

 

Jimmy says goodbye to Asha and lowers the mobile from his ear.

He glances down at the screen out of habit. There’s a text from Cassie telling him she’s already through security and waiting at the gate for her flight to Glasgow. He thumbs over the keyboard to wish her a safe journey and remind her to text when she’s back on the ground. She sends the anticipated exasperated emoji in reply, but he knows she’ll do as he asks anyway. He cradles the mobile in his hand and looks out over the sea toward the horizon. Clouds are scudding across a clear blue sky. A ferry is making its stately way in toward Lerwick, a smaller fishing trawler heading out to deep water. He’s reluctant to go back into the house, anticipating how empty it will be without her. He’s become more used to her long absences since she went off to university but this will be different. This is Cassie starting a new chapter of her life in a country he’s never been to, with a man he’s only beginning to know.

Jimmy knows it could all end abruptly. He remembers how once -- many summers ago, in a fit of reckless, youthful optimism -- he had followed a lover to Dundee during the summer holidays. It had ended, rather ignominiously, with a ferry ride back to Fair Isle before the summer was half over. He’d been swept away by Rickie’s gorgeous curls and term-time passion for Russian literature only to discover that on holidays Rickie enjoyed drink, and club drugs -- and not paying rent -- a wee bit more than Jimmy could stand.

But Jimmy has a good feeling about Cassie’s young man, Edison. He likes the way Edison leans in against Cassie’s shoulder as the three of them talk, likes the easy set of her shoulders as she leans back. He’s taken note of the dozens of casual intimacies that betray their comfort with one another. He gives them at least even-odds for building something that lasts. As Asha has recently -- and somewhat bitterly -- observed, Jimmy is usually prepared to suspect anyone. But nothing about Edison causes Jimmy’s hackles to rise either as a father or as an inspector. So he’s not counting on having his girl back, is in fact hoping she finds a life that suits her, and that fact aches in his chest. Even though he knows it’s a part of life, something every parent reckons with in one way or another.

He wonders if, some day, he and Duncan will be waiting at the Lerwick airport for Portuguese-speaking grandchildren.

The app is still open on his phone and he swipes back to the list of text logs. Duncan’s name is right there below Cassie’s because he’d texted Duncan when he was running late for their goodbye lunch with Cassie. He looks at the name, and the associated photo. It’s a picture of Duncan from the night of EuroVision, down at the pub. One of several photos Jimmy had taken that evening. He’d been just tipsy enough, off duty enough, not to think too hard about why he was taking the photographs at all. It had been something about the delight in Duncan’s face as they sat there listening to the crap pop songs, watching the over-the-top performances, and yelling out good-natured ridicule alongside everyone else in the crowded room. He’d wanted to capture the moment of shared happiness, store it in his pocket for safekeeping.

He shoves his mobile back into the pocket of his jacket and goes inside before he can ask himself again why he cares that Duncan's gone out for the night with explicit plans not to be back before morning. It’s not Jimmy’s business to care. Never has been, quite likely never will be.

As if knowing that has ever stopped him.

* * *

The house feels as empty as he expected it would; doubly so because he had been counting on supper with Duncan to ease him into the first night of a different kind of fatherhood. He shrugs out of his jacket, pulling his mobile out of the pocket before he drops the jacket over the back of a chair. He walks into the kitchen and forces himself to set the mobile down on the counter before he does something regrettable. Something like text Duncan to ask how the date is going. Something like come up with a reason he needs Duncan to come home. He considers the half-finished bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon pushed to the back of the counter by the knife block, then opens the cupboard for a clean wine glass and turns on the oven. He pours himself a glass of wine, then goes to the refrigerator and rummages one-handed through the shelves until he finds the remains of the lasagna Duncan made earlier in the week.

He carves out a generous serving with a table knife, wraps it in foil, and puts it in the oven to warm.  Then -- in a nod to nutrition -- he tosses a few handfuls of greens in a bowl and sprinkles vinaigrette over them. Wine and salad in hand, he retreats to the dining room table where his laptop sits quietly charging. Standing by the table, he has a short, silent argument with himself about whether or not he should knock off a few hours worth of paperwork. With Tosh’s transfer down to Inverness, her replacement still pending, he's more than a few hours behind on routine emails. Work -- with its promise of mind-numbing memorandum and redundant forms -- wins out after another mouthful of wine. He opens his laptop, navigating by rote through the steps of connecting his machine to the secure network. Maybe data entry and the dry, factual sentences of required documentation will distract him from all of the things he’s trying not to think about. At least not tonight.

When he gets up three hours later to clear away the dinner dishes, he checks his phone messages and sees that Cassie has landed in Glasgow and made her connection for Buenos Aires. She's somewhere over the Atlantic now, chasing the sun westward. He glances out the window toward the water as if he could see the aircraft disappearing over the curvature of the earth. This close to midsummer the evening light lingers through to the early morning hours and out the kitchen window he can still see the glint of the setting sun on the crest of rolling ocean.

He pours another glass of wine, and carries the bottle back to the table wondering how soon would be _too_ soon to visit Cassie and Edison. Christmas, maybe? In his mind’s eye he sees both Duncan and Cassie rolling their eyes at him. Duncan, who -- as far as Jimmy has been able to pry out of him -- left his childhood home at sixteen and never looked back, thinks Cassie needs space away from the Shetlands, away from her parents, just _away_. Duncan had never gone to university, spending the better part of a decade working oil rigs out on the North Sea -- six weeks on, six weeks off -- and traveling when he was on leave. That was how he’d met Fran, who had been at the American University in Cairo on a one-year fellowship teaching art history. They’d hooked up at a club one night only to discover they had grown up a stone’s throw away from one another in Dundee. Jimmy suspects that the three years Fran and Duncan --eventually joined by baby Cassie -- had shared a flat in Glasgow mark the longest Duncan has lived in one place since Duncan struck out on his own. He’s been expecting Cassie to leave, is probably surprised it took her this long.

He shakes his head and wipes a hand over his face. Here he is, thinking about Duncan again when he’s promised himself he won’t spend the night doing just that. He considers his half-empty wine glass and tops it off before closing his laptop and taking himself to the sofa. He turns on the television. There’s a football game on and he lets the burble of the commentators wash over him as he watches the players move up and down the field with soothing predictability. He’s never been particularly good at following football, though Fran -- who had played at uni -- had _tried_ to teach him. But the sounds of the televised game remind him of Fran and that’s comforting and familiar. He lets his eyes rest on the jerseys moving up and down the field and thinks about the puzzle that is Duncan, Duncan’s place in Jimmy’s life, and Jimmy’s place in Duncan’s.

The thing is, Jimmy has always been aware of the fact that he _could_ want Duncan. If he let himself. It’s just that he had, years ago, learned to carry that awareness without any intent to act upon it. He and Duncan had first met perhaps six, seven months after Jimmy and Fran began dating. By that time Jimmy had already known he and Fran were serious. Serious enough that he wasn’t looking for anyone else. Serious enough that he’d already felt the relief of certainty deep in his bones: the knowledge that he and Fran and Cassie were good together. Good at being a family. So when Duncan had turned up on the stoop one day -- back from a summer working Celtic festivals across the Canadian prairies -- to reacquaint himself with his two-year-old daughter, Jimmy had acknowledged that initial spark of interest for what it was … and then set it aside.

“I can see what drew you to him,” he’d admitted to Fran, tugging her into his lap one night a few months after the wedding. The two of them had gotten a sitter and gone to hear Duncan’s band at the Southside Fringe. The sharp, warning edges that a younger Duncan -- God, they’d all been so young then -- had carried with him almost everywhere had softened when he the bodhrán in his hands. The intensity of his attention to the other musicians, the joy that radiated from him, was electric. Jimmy had felt the tug of that energy, even then, and considered being jealous that Fran had once been included in that circle of joy.

“Mmm,” Fran had replied, leaning back to rest her head against Jimmy’s shoulder, her cheek alongside his. Together they watched Duncan on the raised platform at the back of the pub that stood for a stage, watched his hands move in steady rhythm keeping time for the fiddler and the vocalist. It felt intimate, Jimmy had thought then, watching Duncan play with Fran in his arms. The three of them tied together by a tangle of accumulated history and commitments.

“Should I be worried?” Fran had asked, eventually, her hands resting lightly over his where they held her snug at the waist. He was conscious of her wedding band pressed into his flesh. The question had been barely a murmur -- more felt than heard -- pitched not to disrupt the fiddler’s moment in the spotlight.

“Mmm,” he’d murmured back. “Do you think he’s likely to kidnap me, spoil my virtue?” He’d nuzzled her ear as he asked it, making her laugh.

“Hardly,” she’d snorted. “He never goes after the married ones.” It had been Duncan’s wandering feet, not wandering eye, that had eventually led to their amicable breakup: Fran had wanted to stay near her parents, had accepted a job at the Kelvingrove, put their daughter in school. Duncan had resisted the idea of putting down roots. Fran hadn’t wanted an absentee partner. With Jimmy happy to be a dad who picked his daughter up at school, Duncan had slipped into the role of a cosmopolitan uncle. He’d blow in unexpectedly for a day or two -- always with a small, magical gift for Cassie, something that came with embellished tales of the adventures he’d been on since the last time. He would brighten their lives for a long weekend and then it was off again to Cardiff, to Nice, to Prague, or Addis Ababa.  Jimmy suspects that it’s from her father that Cassie gets her wanderlust.

For a handful of wonderful years -- three, four, five, six -- it had worked, and worked well, for the four of them.

And then -- when Cassie was almost nine -- Fran had gone into hospital with what they thought was persistent case of pneumonia and then found out soon enough was cancer. Jimmy still doesn’t remember those months with a great deal of clarity, but Duncan had been there, early on, and just ... stayed. He’d taken Cassie when Fran needed Jimmy, and been there for shifts at Fran’s bedside when Jimmy needed to sleep. And together they’d stumbled through the final weeks of hospice care and the numbness that had engulfed everything after.

And at the end of it all, Duncan had followed Jimmy and Cassie home to Shetland.

That had been ten years ago, and Jimmy still doesn’t know what exactly it is that he and Duncan share -- beyond a daughter, and grief. They don’t talk about it, but it’s there, something vital, holding them together. Ten years of sharing a life and Jimmy has no idea if he has a right say: _Don’t go to the pub tonight, I want you here._ To say: _I’m not seeing Asha because it’s you I really want._ To say: _Stay._

The last time Jimmy had been down to Glasgow for a meeting, and stayed overnight to see Fran’s parents, and then Cassie and Edison, he went by Asha’s flat with a bottle of Shetland Reel and some of his mother-in-law’s shortbread. Asha was still on medical leave, though he knew -- because they spoke every few days on the phone -- she was starting to ease back into work from her kitchen table. She’d been happy to see him when she opened the door, and they’d shared the whiskey at that same kitchen table piled high with files and empty teacups. But even before she’d told him about Tony, Jimmy knew she was seeing someone, and that that someone wasn’t him. He had realized, then, that he was happy for her -- happy in an unencumbered way that told him he had never seriously entertained the possibility of there being something more between them.

And when he’s asked himself why, on the flight back to Lerwick, the answer had been that the person who fit best in his life, who felt most like _home_ , already had his own set of keys.

Jimmy drifts off on the sofa between one football match and the next, bothering only to pull up his feet and stretch out with lumpy throw pillow under his head. Not long after that -- at some point in the brief darkness of the midsummer night -- he wakes to the _snick_ of a key in the lock and the soft noises of Duncan slipping off his shoes, a glass of water being filled at the sink, the toilet being flushed. He’s dreaming, confusedly, of a summer holiday he, Duncan, and Cassie had once taken to Edinburgh Fringe. They had spent a week crammed together in a tiny guest room, the three of them, like sardines in a tin. Only in the dream the festival has come to them and Jimmy is trying to fit all of Duncan’s musician friends into the cottage. He must mutter something in his half sleep because Duncan’s hand is on his shoulder and Jimmy smells the scent of chips and stale beer before Duncan pulls away and the weight of a wool blanket descends.

The over-crowded cottage full of unwanted strangers fades and he dreams instead of Duncan’s arms wrapped around him.

* * *

He wakes with a stiff neck and a stale tongue, having drooled on the sofa pillow wedged under his head. He has a disoriented moment of panic that the alarm on his phone hasn’t gone off before he remembers that he had offered to take second shift that day and wouldn’t be expected at the office before noon. He pushes himself up on his elbow and contemplates the wine glass and empty bottle on the table in front of him. It hadn’t been enough to give him a headache but he can tell he hasn’t brushed his teeth and definitely needs the toilet sooner rather than later. As the blanket slips down his shoulders, the memory of Duncan’s early morning return surfaces and with it the conscious recognition that Duncan is moving about the kitchen, accompanied by the sound and smell of fried food and fresh coffee.

He stands up with a soft groan and shuffles to the toilet, taking the chance to splash his face with water and run his toothbrush over his teeth before human interaction.

When Jimmy returns to the common room, Duncan looks up from the frying eggs and tomatoes and gestures to the counter where the French press stands, still three-quarters full, next to an empty mug. “Coffee?”

Jimmy pours himself a cup and turns to lean up against the counter, cradling the warm mug in both hands. It might be late June but the morning has a chill this close to the water and he’s only in jeans and a rumpled, rather threadbare jumper.

“Your night wasn’t a go after all, then?” He asks, cautiously.

Duncan shrugs, poking at the egg yolks with the corner of his spatula. “We had a pint or two, caught up on the gossip.”

“Ah,” Jimmy takes a sip of coffee and scrubs a hand over his face, hoping the caffeine will work its magic and wake up his brain. He’s aware that something made Duncan change his plans -- or, at least the plans as Jimmy had understood them. He just doesn’t have the key piece of information. “I didn’t realize she was a friend of yours.”

Another of Duncan’s shrugs. “Our paths cross from time to time.” Duncan’s network of musicians and associates is extensive and fluid. Jimmy has long ago given up trying to parse the many meanings of paths crossing “from time to time.” And he’s deliberately avoided asking for details when it comes to Duncan’s romantic entanglements a wide berth. At first because Duncan himself rarely brought the women -- and, less often, men -- up in conversation with Jimmy and Fran, and more recently because he couldn’t untangle his own motivations for asking.

Duncan scoops up the sizzling eggs and tomatoes and slides them deftly onto the waiting toast, then hands a plate to Jimmy before picking up his own coffee and walking over to the table. “I had a text from Cassie,” he says, and for a moment Jimmy thinks this is a new topic of conversation.

“She’s landed and through customs all right then?” He should have checked his phone, he realizes, as soon as he woke. He looks around for it.

“She has,” Duncan says around a mouthful of coffee. “But I meant last night.” He puts down his plate  and reaches into his back pocket for his phone before sliding into his chair. He thumbs in the passcode, fiddles for a moment and then turns it around and slides it across the table to Jimmy.

 _Dad IS NOT dating Asha._ The text reads. _Can’t believe you didn’t know. You live with him do you never talk???_

Jimmy immediately wishes this were his second cup of coffee. He takes a generous mouthful and re-reads the texts again (Yes, they still say what he thinks they said. _Thank you ever so much, Cassie, for your timing. Really appreciate it._ )

He can feel Duncan watching him. He shakes his head, unable to look up just yet, trying to formulate a response. He wonders what sort of reaction Duncan is expecting. He wonders what sort of reaction Duncan is _hoping_ for.

He sets down his own coffee and reaches out to push the phone back toward Duncan. Then he forces himself to look up at Duncan’s face, his cheeks burning.

“All right, yes, you two win again. I’m _not_ dating Asha -- which, you will recall, I have never claimed to be doing. She’s got a boyfriend, okay? His name is Tony. I met him last time I was in Glasgow.”

“And yet neglected to mention to me when I suggested you call her last night.” Duncan raises an eloquent eyebrow. He picks up his fork and pokes at one of his egg yolks until it runs yellow across his toast, studying Jimmy’s expression.

“What do you care about my personal life?” Jimmy mutters crossly, aware of the absurdity of the question as soon as it leaves his mouth. They both know Duncan has as much a claim as anyone does, except Cassie, and since she has clearly decided to stick her oar in --

Duncan just looks at him and takes a bite of egg and toast.

“And, what, you think I’m incapable of …. asking someone out on a date without a push?” His irritation over the way Duncan has kept at him about Asha wells up in his chest and he glares across the table at the one person he actually _wants_ to ask out on a date, currently chewing his egg and toast with a smug expression.

“In the eleven years since Fran died you’ve had how many lovers?” Duncan knows the answer and Jimmy refuses to give it to him again.

“Not all of us put sex up as high on their list of priorities as you do.” It comes out with more censure than Jimmy had intended. He must be more tired and distracted, and hurt, than he thought he was.

“It’s not about the sex. You know that,” Duncan sighs. “It’s about not being lonely at the end of the day, aye?”

“So that’s what all your --” Jimmy waves a hand, attempting to wordlessly cover every person Duncan has ever slept with. There must have been dozens. “-- were about.”

Duncan shrugs and takes another bite. “Most of them. Yes.”

Jimmy sighs. “Well I don’t ...work like that.”

Duncan snorts and rolls his eyes, mouth full.

The moment of silence stretches out and Jimmy puts down his coffee and picks up his fork, hoping that eating the meal Duncan’s made will cover for all of the things he can’t figure out how to say. Things he probably should be saying. Things Duncan came home last night, apparently, to hear.

This is exactly what he had worried (hoped) would happen when Duncan moved in. That Duncan’s presence would give him a sense of rightness, lend a sense of ease to the end of each day when he came home (at six, at seven, at nine, past midnight) to a house that was inhabited by someone familiar. Someone beloved. Underneath the scent of fried food, toasted bread, and coffee he can smell Duncan’s aftershave and the warmth of his skin. Duncan’s hand is curled around his coffee mug and if Jimmy reached out from where he is sitting, he could lay a hand on Duncan’s wrist, just where it emerges from the frayed cuff of his button-down.

Maybe it really is that simple, Jimmy thinks, squeezing his eyes shut against the temptation. How did people do this? Before he can bend and break beneath all of the reasons he shouldn’t he slides his hand across the space between them and lays his fingers at the warm pulse-point of Duncan’s wrist.

He can feel Duncan’s gaze on him, can feel the slight twitch of Duncan’s wrist beneath his hand -- but Duncan doesn’t say anything and he’s still beneath Jimmy’s palm. Neither pulling away or moving in to the touch. Jimmy can feel the heat of the coffee mug against the side of his own wrist, can feel his own pulse beating a bit wildly inside his throat. He forces himself to look up and meet Duncan’s gaze. Duncan doesn’t look away. He puts down his fork and reaches over with the freed hand to place it over Jimmy’s, holding Jimmy’s hand against his own wrist like he’s holding a compress to a wound.

“I don’t -- work like that.” Jimmy says again, because it’s all he can think to say. Because it’s often come down to this, in his mind, to the way Duncan seems to roll so easily from one bed to another: generous, kind, extravagant with what he has to give and matter-of-fact about his limits. Except … in the almost-a-year since Duncan moved in with Jimmy he’s never brought a partner home. Jimmy realizes that maybe he’s seen this all wrong from the start, been too close to see the patterns and probabilities, assuming too much and too little at the same time.

“I know you don’t, man,” Duncan says, softly.

Jimmy licks his lips and opens his mouth to say -- something. Duncan’s thumb slides under his wrist, though, nudging back the cuff of his jumper. He can feel the callous on the side of Duncan’s thumb catch at the cloth and hears the hitch in his own breathe at the intimacy of it.

“Why did you come home? Last night?” Jimmy finally asks, finding he has to close his eyes to get the words out. Without sight, the feeling of Duncan’s touch at his wrist becomes even more all-consuming. Duncan’s small, circling caresses continue for a breath, then another, before he speaks.

“I thought … I thought what you wanted was a friendly nudge,” he says, finally. “You didn’t seem to -- seem to want more than that. From me. Thought I should make myself scarce.”

Jimmy opens his mouth to protest but Duncan squeezes his wrist and keeps talking. “I didn't want to get in the way.”

“You aren’t -- you’ve never been --” Jimmy objects. He can feel the shrug in Duncan’s shoulder even with his eyes closed. He makes himself blink them open again. Duncan is watching his face with a soft intensity that makes him want to pull away and sink closer all at the same time.

“But I could have been,” Duncan says.

Jimmy just shakes his head, mutely, because he can’t find words to explain how it has never worked like that between them.

“And then Cassie sent me the text -- there I am, sitting at the bar nursing a beer while Tara plays a set -- and at first I thought, ‘Well, he's letting me think it’s that way between them because he doesn't --’ ”

Jimmy digs his fingers into Duncan’s wrist. “No, I just --”

“ -- I know, I know love, just let me -- I thought, ‘Maybe he wants --’ maybe it was just your way of letting me down gentle.”

“I didn’t know what to --” Jimmy stumbles again. “We’ve spent so many years --"”

“And that’s when I realized it was _you,_ ” Duncan rolls his eyes but can’t hide the grin that’s twitching at the corner of his mouth. “If it was up to you, I could cook you breakfast every day for the rest of our lives and you’d still worry about taking advantage the first time we did this.” Duncan releases his hold on the coffee mug and gives Jimmy’s hand a gentle tug. They’re sitting nearly knee to knee at the corner of the worn oak table and all it takes is Jimmy shifting forward in his chair, and Duncan leaning in, to bring their mouths together.

It’s a feather-light touch, a brushing of lips. Jimmy inhales, breathing Duncan deep into his lungs as if he’s surfacing for air -- almost a gasp -- and Duncan accepts the invitation with a flick of his tongue. Jimmy feels the smile spread from the corner of Duncan’s mouth as he inches closer, wanting _more_.

It’s awkward, and Jimmy nearly spills his coffee and does put his elbow into his breakfast, but despite -- or perhaps because -- of this, kissing Duncan is the first completely right thing he’s done this morning. He untangles his fingers from Duncan’s -- that they’re tangled together in the first place a thing he thinks he could never tire of -- and feels his way up the length of Duncan’s forearm to his elbow, then to his shoulder, pushing fingers into Duncan’s hair. Duncan melts under his touch and only then does Jimmy realize how hard, how full of continual effort, a year -- perhaps a decade -- of _not_ doing this has been. How foolish all of his hesitations seem on the other side of the breach.

Duncan makes a small, needy sound that Jimmy feels more than hears, vibrations that tease at his lips and tongue and fingers where he cups the back of Duncan’s skull. “Here -- come here,” he murmurs, pushing himself back from the table and dragging at Duncan until Duncan -- laughing, unresisting -- understands what Jimmy wants and lets himself be pulled out of his chair and around the corner of the table until he can straddle Jimmy’s lap.

“Is this --?” He drags his hands down Duncan’s back, feeling flesh over muscle over bone.

“ _God_ , yes,” is Duncan’s reply, half a groan, as he digs his fingers into Jimmy’s shoulders and lifts himself to encourage Jimmy’s hands lower over the curve of his backside, where Jimmy digs his fingers in -- an echo of Duncan’s grip -- and thinks about how long he has wanted (and felt guilty about wanting) Duncan to be _his_ in this way, too, in addition to all of the other ways they’re entangled together.

Across the room, somewhere in the direction of the sofa, his phone emits the _buzz buzz buzz_ that means work is calling. _Damn damn damn_. He breaks away from Duncan's mouth and presses his forehead against Duncan’s shoulder. “Shit. Shit shit shit -- I have to get this --”

Duncan’s laugh is gratifyingly breathless. “Don’t worry. I know what being married to a DCI is like. I’m not gonna get cold feet just because you’ve a break-in to see to."

Jimmy kisses him one more time for the _being married_ bit and then reluctantly lets Duncan slide back to his feet and stands himself so he can go dig up the mobile and see whether he’ll have time for a shower or if he’s needed more urgently than cleanliness will allow.

When he unearths the mobile from between the sofa cushions the missed call is from Sandy. There’s a message but he just hits the callback option and Sandy picks up on the second ring. There’s been a break-in up at Scudder’s farm and elderly Evelyn Scudder -- who has dementia -- has been assaulted. “Her son’s away to Aberdeen on business, boss,” Sandy says. “And I wouldn’t have called except --”

“No, Sandy, I’ll meet them at the A & E. Has someone called--” he fumbles through his memory “ -- the daughter. Helen, I think. She moved to -- yes. Give her my number and have her call when the ferry docks. I’m sure we’ll still be at hospital.”

He hangs up and turns back toward the kitchen. Duncan is at the counter topping up his coffee.

“You’ll have heard. God, Duncan, I’m  sorry I --” He wants nothing more than to say fuck it and drag Duncan off to the bedroom and not leave the warm cosy nest of a shared bed for the rest of the day, the week, the month, the year.

“Go on,” Duncan says, gesturing with his coffee.  “Go clean yourself up before I give in to the temptation to distract you from the very important business of interrogating pensioners.”

Jimmy goes over to him, needing to touch him again, to make sure this is real. Duncan let’s Jimmy crowd him back up against the kitchen counter, sets his coffee down the better to catch Jimmy’s hips with his coffee-warmed hands and pull him into an easy embrace. Like they've been doing this dance for years already.

“When I get home --” Jimmy starts, not even sure where the sentence ends.

“--I’ll be here,” Duncan says, tipping his head and angling in for a kiss. "That's a promise."


	2. Duncan

Duncan stands in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, and watches Jimmy reverse out of the gravel drive and turn onto the roadway. There’s a squall blowing in from the north, and he can see rain on the water moving toward land even as the sun still glints off the waves closer to shore. He waits on the stoop until Jimmy’s car disappears beyond the rise in the road and then peers into his almost-empty mug with a sigh and goes back into the house. There are breakfast dishes to tidy up and he needs to find something to do with all the restless energy twitching just beneath his skin. He could just ... take care of things himself, he knows. He’s never seen the point of cultivating shame around the ability to orgasm through honest solitary effort. But he’s not in the mood to do so today, not when he’d been so close to Jimmy's hands on him. Not when he has Jimmy’s hands, and mouth, and every other part of Jimmy to look forward to -- hopefully before midnight, tonight. Earlier, if he’s lucky. He grins to himself as he drains the last of his coffee and puts down the mug by the sink. He scoops up his mobile from the breakfast table.

 _You owe me a pint and dinner,_ he texts Jimmy. _Text me when and where. I’ll meet you there._

The reply comes just as he’s finished the washing-up and is plugging in his much-abused laptop in order to send a few files through through to his accountant. Most days he still can’t believe he has become the sort of man who _has_ an accountant but Vickie had talked him into it the last time he’d overdrawn his bank account and been stuck with several hundred pounds worth of fees. Stuart worked for Vickie and a number of her friends, and had developed something of a specialty in patiently shepherding “artistic types,” as he liked to call them, through the money management side of their careers.

 _Counteroffer,_ reads the text from Jimmy. _How about curry from the takeaway and the seasonal from Valhalla?_

 _Tell me you're not texting and driving_ , Duncan responds. _Also: Accepted. I like where this is going._

There’s a lag before the next musical phrase that signals an incoming message from Jimmy. _Now I'm not_ , reads the text. Duncan rolls his eyes. _Going into to the A & E now. _ And Duncan thinks for a minute that'll be the last he hears from Jimmy for a bit, while he does his interviews and sees Mrs Scudder into the hands of her daughter. Then the phone chimes again: _(Me too.)_

He spends the better part of an hour catching up on work-related emails, then closes his computer and spends most of the afternoon running through a few of the modern compositions that are relatively new to his repertoire. He’s off at the end of the month for a three week tour through the Grampions with one of the groups he subs in for on occasion, this time because their regular drummer is on maternity leave for the rest of the summer.

The music helps wind him down from the morning of caffeine and kisses. It’s work that requires energy and attention -- but still allows his mind to wander back over the morning, the night before, the months before that, the years he and Jimmy have had to weave their lives together.

Growing up in a crowded household where he had no protection from the needs of his parents and siblings, Duncan’s prized the relative anonymity of being always on the move, the pleasure of enjoying a slice of life with someone and letting that be _enough._  Caring, and being cared for, and then letting go and moving on to the next chapter. The boundaries have almost always been clear, and comforting.

When Cassie was born he’d let her become a constant -- and with her, Fran. And then Jimmy.

It had taken him years -- years, and a few wise words from friends -- to recognize that with Jimmy and Cassie he didn’t have, or want, anonymity. And that he was actually _envious_ of the fact that Jimmy got to live full-time with the daughter they shared, that _he_ was the one who had the skills to be an actual, serious parent. Duncan is grateful for Jimmy and jealous too. And, finally -- it had taken Cassie’s departure to university for him to recognize it -- he’d realized, years after it had become fact, that what he felt around Jimmy was the kind of love you feel when you _know_ someone. When you’ve known someone for years and you _still_ feel you haven’t learned all you want to know from or about them, when you know deep in your bones that you’ll want to keep learning what they have to share with you for the rest of your bloody life.

And at that point, what the hell was he supposed to do?

What he _had_ done, without fully understanding why it felt so urgent, was show up at Jimmy’s office in the middle of one of his hellish murder investigations -- the kind that kept him going for twenty hours out of every day and made him forget to eat until Cassie (and now Duncan) showed up with food and didn’t go away until he ate something -- and ask to move in.

Maybe moving in had been a bit back to front, compared to the usual order of things. But they'd done everything else backward, he and Jimmy. Grieving the death of a lover and spouse, raising a daughter, bickering over parenting decisions, and finishing one anothers’ sentences. Why not this too?

It felt like the right step, even though Duncan had no idea how the step after, or the step after that, might go. And he sure as hell didn’t know how to turn what they already had, him and Jimmy, into the something _more_ that he so suddenly understands that he wants: Jimmy, naked and warm along his back on a January night. Jimmy, pressing lingering kisses into his skin on endless summer evenings. Jimmy, letting Duncan strip him down to skin and bone and give him pleasure. Duncan falling open to Jimmy doing the same.

And so they had slid through the past eleven months somewhere in a frustrating, murky middle ground. They drove each other to the airport, took turns with the grocery bill, called or texted one another when they were out unexpectedly late, and _still_ finished one anothers’ sentences ,and bickered over how to respond to Cassie's plans to leave university.

The weeks had become months, and closed in on a year, and they never made it to the kissing, the touching, the undressing, and the blessed sleep tangled in eachothers’ arms. That part of being together -- something Duncan only grew more certain he wanted -- continued to elude them. There had been fragile moments -- a drawn out beat between one measure of time and the next -- when a look, a touch, a word had almost become something more. Sometimes it had been Duncan, poised on the brink, who hesitated. Sometimes it had been Jimmy. Duncan had become a close reader of Jimmy’s tells: the ways he self-consciously checked the impulse to make intimately casual physical contact, the lingering looks, the soft smiles.

Once, when Jimmy had come home at the end of a brutal, two-day slog of a case and found Duncan with salmon steaks in the oven, he'd come over to accept a proffered glass of Chardonnay and Duncan had thought as he passed Jimmy the glass: _All I have to do is tip my chin up and he’ll kiss me._ But he'd let the glass go, and turned away.

Once, on their way to collect Cassie at Lerwick airport. Jimmy had reached for the gearshift and then settled his hand on Duncan’s thigh. Duncan had said nothing, keeping his eyes on the frosty early-morning roadway as the warmth of Jimmy’s palm woke him more thoroughly than any cup tea. Before the top of the hour newscast had ended, Jimmy seemed to realize what he’d done and carefully withdrawn his hand.

Neither of them had ever mentioned it.

Duncan had been willing to admit to himself he was lost. He was used to sexual relationships that began with a sweaty jam session or tipsy kisses and a pleasant grope at the bar. The sex, the physical closeness, generally came first: mutual satisfaction in bed leading to lazy post-coital conversations about favorite jazz musicians, the epistemology of Pink Floyd, the meaning of life, one’s favorite biscuit, and arguments about the proper steps to making the perfect cup of tea. He knew how to turn physical pleasure into emotional intimacy, but was at a loss as to how you took the emotional intimacy of accumulated years and transmuted it into sexual joy.

Then Asha had appeared. Beautiful, educated, successful -- things Duncan knew he could never claim. And every time Jimmy spoke about or to her, every time she came to him or he went to her, Duncan felt the urge to flee. To give up, to let go of Jimmy and accept (try to accept) that what they’d had was enough and it was time to move on. As he always had. It was pathetic, he told himself. _He_ was pathetic: He was living at Jimmy’s, paying an absurdly low rent (paying at all only because he insisted), and pining after his daughter’s stepfather. Who clearly thought he could do better elsewhere.

So Duncan had tried to go back to the carefree and casual sex of before. Had tried to distract himself with a few friends he knew he liked to fuck, a few strangers whose vibe he definitely liked. It had been, mutually desired and physically satisfying -- but each time he’d known -- even as his partner orgasmed -- that he wouldn’t be pursuing it. This wasn’t what he wanted.

 _Jimmy_ was what -- who -- he wanted now.

And finally -- _finally!_ \-- he understands that Jimmy truly wants him back.

 _(Me too.)_ reads the text when he opens the app again over a mid-afternoon cuppa.

_(Me too.)_

_(Me too.)_

_(Me too.)_

* * *

The late night and early morning finally catch up with him about teatime, and even half a pot of Yorkshire Gold can’t keep his eyes from slowly drooping. Around five -- paperwork finished, practice complete, and nothing left to do but wait with delicious anticipation for Jimmy’s return -- he gives in to sleep, curled up on the sofa under a blanket that smells of Jimmy. He drifts for an hour, then two, then a bit more, to the sound or rain against the windowpanes and disjointed dreams about Jimmy and the first flat he and Fran had shared in Glasgow, about Cassie as a wee bairn, all woven together into a story about taking a holiday with Jimmy to a pub he’d once played at on the Isle of Skye.

It’s Jimmy who wakes him, finally, wrestling his way through the door with the takeaway and ale, followed up shortly with a soft kiss to Duncan’s brow before Duncan has the wherewithal to open his eyes and muster a proper greeting.

“ ‘lo,” Duncan manages, his voice rusty from sleep. He clears his throat and blinks at Jimmy in the twilight that suffuses the living room. Jimmy’s crouched beside the sofa, elbow on knee as he watches Duncan wake.

“Hello, sleeping beauty,” Jimmy says, in what is likely meant to be a teasing tone but comes out soft and almost wondering.

“Doesn't that mean that you’ll have to kiss me awake?” Duncan fumbles a hand out from beneath his pillow and reaches out to reel Jimmy in.

Jimmy leans in with the touch of Duncan's hand as if he’s been waiting for permission, dropping his knee so he can kneel up and brace himself with one hand against the sofa back as Duncan pulls him down into a kiss. It’s slow and searching, Jimmy’s tongue and teeth teasing at Duncan’s bottom lip, pressing ticklish, tasting kisses to the corner of his mouth, opening to Duncan’s lips, teeth, and tongue in return. He _hmms_ a satisfied sound against Duncan’s cheek, mouthing gentle kisses along Duncan’s jawline to the base of his ear as Duncan arches his neck encouragingly. Jimmy leaning over him, still wearing his windbreaker and smelling of rain and sea air, has an evening chill about his skin that is a delicious contrast to Duncan’s sleep-warmed body. Delicious and slightly dangerous, like the embrace of an incoming tide.

Duncan rakes his fingers through hair at the back of Jimmy's scalp, pushes beneath Jimmy’s collar, then slides his hands around to fumble with the zip on the front of Jimmy’s jacket trying to get his hands on as much skin as he can.

“Are you hungry?” Jimmy murmurs the question against the soft skin behind Duncan’s ear, where he has his face pressed close against Duncan’s neck. Duncan tries to give the question serious consideration for a handful of seconds, but then Jimmy works his hand between the pillows on the back of the sofa and Duncan’s hip, pushing cold fingers up under Duncan’s shirt and hoodie to splay his palm against Duncan’s side.

“Food can wait,” Duncan grunts, pushing himself up into Jimmy’s touch, wanting _more_. “We have other things I’d rather focus on if that’s alright with you.”

“Thank God,” Jimmy says, half laughing, half relieved, and Duncan turns his face into Jimmy’s neck to nip at an earlobe.

“You really thought I was going to make you feed me before sex?”

“I _did_ interrupt breakfast,” Jimmy points out.

“For which I plan to be eternally grateful,” Duncan pokes him in the side. “Take me to bed, love. We’re too old to be comfortable here.”

* * *

Jimmy’s bedroom is neat but lived in: a pair of jeans tossed in the direction of the hamper, the duvet pulled more or less straight but with no real care. The smell of the rain-wet air and earth blows through faded curtains. Through unspoken agreement, they stop by the side of the bed to fumble with clothes -- clumsy in their mutual eagerness to undress, both unwilling to give up touching one another in order to strip efficiently. Duncan can feel Jimmy shaking under his hands as he unzips the windbreaker, pushes it down off Jimmy’s arms, pushes his hands up under Jimmy’s jumper and shirt. It’s a fine tremble, and not from cold. The superficial chill he had carried in from outside has already burned off and been replaced by warmth that Duncan wants to curl into and never leave.

"We were fools not to have done this years ago," he mutters, as he pulls the jumper and shirt over Jimmy’s head and then drops them on the floor, moving in to smooth his hands up Jimmy’s chest and over his shoulders to pull him back into a kiss, harsher and more hungry than the slow, sleepy kisses of a only minutes before.

“Yes,” Jimmy agrees simply, hands coming up between them to work open the buttons on Duncan’s shirt, to push it and the hoodie off, and then they’re pressed chest to chest with a sudden all-encompassing flush of awareness that makes Duncan gasp into Jimmy’s mouth.  Jimmy walks them gently but firmly to the edge of the mattress and Duncan lets his knees bend. He sinks back onto the duvet and pulls Jimmy with him, Jimmy following Duncan's mouth with his own until he's forced to put one knee and then another up onto the mattress and crawl up Duncan's body, straddling him as Duncan melts back into the embrace of the worn flannel and eiderdown.

Duncan groans and arches up into the cage of Jimmy’s arms and thighs, all but weeping with relief at the feeling of safety and belonging. They grapple and tangle for a moment or two, working their way up the bed centimeter by centimeter, bodies pressed together, kissing, biting, caressing, tugging. They’re still wearing jeans and pants and socks, and Duncan is achingly aware of how confining those layers are starting to feel. He shifts his hips, leaning into the sensation of pressure and pull. He’s ended up with his legs tangled around Jimmy’s right knee and he captures the knee with his thighs, pushing up and against, feeling Jimmy hard and tight against his own hip with each thrust.  “ _Christ_ ,” he whispers against Jimmy’s shoulder as Jimmy rocks into him, rough and needy. “ _Christ_ , _yes, that, like that._ ” He’s not even thinking about words, really, just sounds of encouragement, wanting Jimmy closer, _closer_.


	3. Jimmy

Jimmy lets himself set aside, for now, the need to understand every chapter and nuance of the story that led them here: to this island, to this house, to this bed, to one another. The part of his mind that wakes him up at half three in the morning with the crucial connection that helps solve a seemingly insoluble crime may let him know -- someday -- how it happened. But he is also at peace with not knowing. Because however they finally found their way to one another, it’s materially evident in every touch, every nip, every kiss that Duncan has no intention of misplacing him now. _Good_ , Jimmy thinks, fiercely. Because he has no intention of losing Duncan either.

He kneels back on the bed, rocking against Duncan’s thigh, the snag and pull of denim on denim sweet and agonizing as he works his way down Duncan’s chest with lips and tongue. Palms his way down the rise and fall of Duncan’s ribcage. He listens to Duncan’s breathless nothings (which, in fact, mean everything) as Duncan’s fingers pull and comb through his hair, dig into his shoulders, pinch his earlobes, caress his cheek. _Yes, God yes, just like -- yes, that, again, fuck, fuck you, please --_ and thinks of all the wordless ways they’ve accumulated to say yes, and yes, and yes again.

He noses Duncans nipple, the one with the small silver ring. When Duncan sucks in a breath Jimmy exhales hot and close, then tongues over the piercing and catches it oh-so-lightly in his teeth. Duncan arches up with a _fuck_ and Jimmy lets himself grin around the steel between his teeth. “Like that, do you?”

“Fuck you,” Duncan says. Jimmy shoves his arse back against Duncan’s knee in wordless response. _Yes, please._ Duncan pulls him up into a kiss and Jimmy laughs, breathlessly, against his mouth. When had this become so simple?

“Now,” Duncan says, shoving at Jimmy’s shoulder to push him off Duncan’s hips and back against the neighboring pillows. “Let’s see about getting those jeans off.”

Jimmy watches Duncan’s face above him in the fading light from the window, light that makes Duncan’s graying hair seem like a continuation of the slowly shifting shadows of the bedroom. Beneath his tousled hair his eyes are bright, his cheeks flushed, his mouth well-kissed. _I did that_ , the teenage boy in Jimmy’s brain rouses himself to boast, _Look at that, look how much he wants you._ Jimmy isn’t particularly proud of the level of sophistication, but he does have to agree with the general sentiment: Duncan so openly _wanting_ , turning toward Jimmy as if he’s only been waiting for the invitation, is beautiful. Ethereal, even. Jimmy watches Duncan’s face and thinks of the last time he saw Duncan on stage, performing live. Duncan is _here_ in Jimmy’s bed with the same whole-body attention he gives to finding the rhythm and melody of a lament, the same discipline of movement he has keeping time for a reel.  He bends to the task of sliding his palms down Jimmy’s chest, fingering and then undoing the button that rests below Jimmy’s bellybutton, running a thumb deliberately down the zip, watches Jimmy watch him, listens to Jimmy’s breathing, responds to the way Jimmy’s body jumps beneath his touch.

Jimmy closes his eyes against the exposure of being seen, feeling himself flush with more than just arousal. He’s lain here in this bed touching himself, just where Duncan is touching him now, palming his growing erection beneath through the soft cotton of pyjama pants and thinking about what it would be like for the touch to be Duncan’s instead of his own. Now he knows. He fists his hands in the flannel of the duvet cover and turns his face into the pillow as he lifts his hips at Duncan’s urging, and lets Duncan slide his jeans and pants in one sure movement down his thighs and over his calves and feet, taking the socks with him as he goes. There’s a draft of cool night air, almost a relief against skin that feels feverishly sensitive. Before he thinks about doing it he’s pushing up against the frustrating nothingness of Duncan’s absence with a whine of impatience. He wants to be _touched_ , damn it. He wants to know he’s no longer alone in his desire.

“I’ve got ye, man,” Duncan murmurs, a staying hand warm against the groove of Jimmy’s thigh -- close to, but oh-so-carefully _not_ touching him where he aches to be touched. “Just a moment love,” and Jimmy bites back a growl of impatience that makes Duncan laugh. “Greedy.”

“Of course I am,” Jimmy turns to glare and has the pleasure of watching Duncan strip off his own jeans and pants without ceremony, stepping out of the pant legs and socks as his cock bobs free. Jimmy is up on one elbow reaching for him as he stumbles over the second sock and half-falls onto the bed, his nose colliding with Jimmy’s shoulder with a yelp that turns into laughter and then they’re both laughing, laughing and breathless, as Duncan crawls back onto the bed and Jimmy’s scoots back to give them room. It all feels a bit foolish, and soft, and unhurried all at once as if they’ve done this a hundred, a thousand times before and both know how it ends: with orgasms and sleep and waking up in eachothers arms.

Duncan stretches out beside Jimmy with a sigh that is nearly a sob -- of relief, Jimmy thinks, because he feels it too: _This, this, this_. He turns his head to meet Duncan’s mouth, as Duncan leans in for a kiss, and then arches up with a groan as Duncan takes him in a loose, but promising, grip. Jimmy can feel Duncan taking his measure, adjusting his grip, responding to whatever Jimmy’s body is telling him. Jimmy’s own awareness folds in on itself until all he can focus on is the slide and pull of Duncan’s hand, barely finding a rhythm before the tension that Jimmy’s been carrying deep in his body since breakfast pulls impossible, impossibly tight and then breaks, spilling over Duncan’s hand and wrist, hot on his belly as Duncan sinks his teeth into the flesh of Jimmy’s shoulder as his own hips jerk forward, hard, against Jimmy’s thigh and then he’s coming too, hand shaking against Jimmy’s still-sensitive, softening cock and slick belly as he stops himself from gripping in the wrong places. Jimmy has just enough coordination left to reach down and thread his fingers with Duncan’s own, murmuring incoherent, post-coital sounds of encouragement and love, holding Duncan tight until the final echoes of pleasure seem to have wrung out themselves out into boneless rest.

The silence that stretches out in the wake of their orgasms is peaceful rather than awkward. Both a continuation of their newfound sexual intimacy and a continuation of the countless moments of contented silence they’ve shared during the past dozen years. Jimmy lets himself sink into the stillness with gratitude. Duncan’s breath is deep and slow against his neck Jimmy would wonder if Duncan was asleep but for the small, circling pressure against the inside of his wrist, Duncan’s thumb tracing across tendon and pulsepoint where their hands are still tangled together across the soft, sweat-damp rise of Jimmy’s belly.

Outside, the dark is closing in. The rain has stopped and on the wind a distant foghorn calls long and low.

Finally, he has to get up for the toilet. He disentangles himself with a kiss and a sigh and shuffles down the hall without bothering to flip on the lights. He’s standing at the sink washing his hands when Duncan appears in the doorway and brushes behind him to take his turn having a piss. Jimmy turns off the tap and dries his hands but feels reluctant to leave now that Duncan is here too. Ridiculous, he knows, even as he lingers. He brushes his fingertips across the bruise on his clavicle, looking at the shadow of it in the mirror, and thinks about dressing for work in the morning, about carrying Duncan’s mark on his skin. His skin prickles at the image.

In the mirror, out of the corner of his eye, he’s aware of Duncan finishing, and steps back from the sink so Duncan can wash his hands in turn.  As Duncan bends over the sink, soap and water on his hands, Jimmy presses himself up against Duncan’s spine, sliding his hands in long strokes up from belly to chest. He watches himself pulling Duncan close, in the mirror, his chin on Duncan’s shoulder, Duncan leaning back into him as if he’s long used to belonging in the circle of Jimmy’s arms.

“Stay,” Jimmy whispers against Duncan’s cheek. It’s a ridiculous thing to ask. This is already Duncan’s home. But he repeats it anyway: “Stay.” Duncan drops the hand towel on the edge of the sink and lifts his hands to fold them over Jimmy’s. His eyes catch and hold Jimmy’s gaze in the glass.

“I will, love.” Duncan says. “I will. Now take me back to bed.”

And Jimmy does.


	4. Duncan

Duncan sleeps restlessly. There are the inevitable adjustments to sharing a bed: they haven’t (yet) had time to learn how to accommodate one another in sleep and Jimmy is a sprawler. He also runs hot, and kicks the duvet off during the night, leaving Duncan to wake wondering why half of him is cold while the rest of him is comfortably warm. Luckily for Jimmy, the comfortable warmth distracts Duncan from the early morning chill because he’s snugged himself flush along Jimmy’s back in an effort to stay warm; any other night he’ll make time for annoyance at the absence of the duvet but right now all he feels is blessed. He presses a kiss to Jimmy’s shoulder and tucks his knees more firmly up behind Jimmy’s thighs. The kiss turns into a smile as Jimmy murmurs, wordlessly, in response and wriggles himself back into Duncan’s arms. 

Yes, Duncan will definitely get used to this.

He drifts into a final stretch of light sleep as the early northern dawn creeps through the curtains and across the bedroom floor to the edge of the bed. The slide of Jimmy’s palm across his torso brings him gently back to wakefulness suffused with a languorous contentment. He murmurs his own wordless praise in response to Jimmy’s touch, pushing up into the touch before he’s even found the strength to open his eyes.

Jimmy chuckles.

Duncan squints, reluctantly in the direction of the sound. Jimmy looks offensively awake. He’s lying on his side, arm crooked under the pillow to prop himself up so he can watch Duncan’s reaction as he continues running his palm in long, sweeping strokes from shoulder to navel then back again. He stops at the nipple piercing and circles the pad of his thumb over it, pressing lightly, then a little harder. Duncan feels himself twitch in response beneath the duvet. He stretches again, up into the weight of Jimmy’s palm, and lets his eyes close again to focus on the gentle path of Jimmy’s hand up and back, up and back.

“I think if you were a cat you’d be purring,” Jimmy observes, amused.

“Who says I’m not?” Duncan asks, lazily, because right now it feels as if it could be true.

“Ah, that would explain the nocturnal lifestyle,” Jimmy plays along. “The naps in puddles of sun. The appreciation of fish. Your habit of wandering away whenever it suits you.”

“I don’t think it suits me quite as much as it used to,” Duncan admits, capturing Jimmy’s hand beneath his own as it comes to rest just below the dip of his navel, pinky finger grazing the thatch curls at his groin. He’s aroused, but not urgently so, and has always liked riding this edge of heightened awareness. He could spend all day under Jimmy’s hands without coming until teatime and it would be glorious. He swallows at the thought.   

Jimmy presses a kiss to the back of Duncan’s hand. “You don’t have to give up wandering for me. You know that, don’t you? I wouldn’t want --”

It’s Duncan’s turn to chuckle. “Ah, love. Don't fret. You must know by now that my wanderings always bring me back to you.”

“Mm.” The warmth of Jimmy’s mouth moves from their intertwined fingers up to Duncan’s navel, feathery kisses that are barely more than a brush of lips. Duncan feels Jimmy’s head settle against his belly and opens his eyes again to peer down at Jimmy’s face, trying to read his expression.

“Love,” Duncan says. “I could keep you naked in bed six days out of every seven and _still_ wonder if I’d discovered everything there was to know about you.”

Jimmy presses his face into Duncan’s flesh, half shaking his head in denial, half rubbing his rough cheek against Duncan’s belly as if he’s the cat, now, scent-marking his territory. _Mine_.

“Six days out of seven?” he finally asks, lightly, lifting his head.

“Mmm,” Duncan agrees, sliding a hand into Jimmy’s hair, down the back of his skull, tugging lightly at the soft hair that curls at the back of his neck.

Jimmy arranges his face in an exaggerated expression of consideration. “I suppose I might be persuaded. That is, if you were in bed, naked, _with_ me.” He pushes himself back into a sitting position and then resettles along Duncan’s side, leaning in for a proper kiss. Duncan leans up to meet him, rubbing noses before pressing a kiss against Jimmy’s smile.

Jimmy reaches up to brush Duncan’s hair out of his eyes, gives him a second kiss, then a third, as he smooths his hand down over Duncan’s shoulder to his back, pulling him in against Jimmy’s chest so they’re pressed together again, as they had been in sleep, only this time chest to chest. Jimmy’s fingers dig appreciatively into the flesh of Duncan’s arse. Duncan slides his hand around to return the favor, still marveling at the permission he has to simply reach out and touch. He can feel his body starting to wake up to the possibility of more active forms of mutual pleasure.

He’s seen Jimmy nude before, of course, and he’s enjoyed what he saw. But it’s always been an appreciation to acknowledge and distract himself politely from. Now, finally, he has the permission to linger. He mirrors the leisurely stroking of palm against skin that had woken him: feels the muscles in Jimmy’s arm, the bumps of his ribs, the dip and swell of his hip, his tailbone at the base of his spine, the groove of his arse, the crook of his knee as Duncan hauls one of Jimmy’s legs over his own thigh, seeking -- _there, fuck_ \-- the slide of Jimmy’s cock against his own, the always shocking intimacy of being allowed to hold someone in such vulnerable ways.

He hasn’t thought of Jimmy as vulnerable in many years. They’re no stranger to one another’s messiest grieving moments: Duncan knows what Jimmy looks like terrified, angry, lost, numb. He’s also seen Jimmy tender and kind, knows the love that Jimmy gives -- and gives generously -- to those closest to him. Sex, though, is a unique and often terrifying kind of openness. Duncan doesn’t know for sure how many partners Jimmy has had in his life, but suspects they would be in the single digits. Jimmy doesn’t open himself to this easily, or frequently. It makes his trust in Duncan, his willingness to be here in this bed, in this room, in the home they’ve so unexpectedly created, all the more precious. And humbling.

“I have to meet Sandy up at the Scudder’s farm at nine o’clock,” Jimmy murmurs, apologetically.

“But I thought my magic cock was going to keep you in bed for a fortnight,” Duncan whispers back, pushing he hand down between them and pulling back just enough so he can wrap his fingers around them both.

“I was thinking maybe I could, you know -- _nnngh_ \-- come home a bit early for tea?”Jimmy is trying to sound nonchalant but it’s coming out strained; when Duncan shifts his grip Jimmy lets out a gratifying sound that Duncan immediately wants to wring out of him again, and again.

“Mmm.” It’s Duncan’s turn to pretend an actual question has been posed. “I suppose in that case I might consider allowing a temporary leave of absence from the bed…” He shifts his arm, making as if to let go of them both.

Jimmy _growls_... and isn’t that a lovely sound? Duncan grins as he falls back against the pillows, catching Jimmy’s arm and pulling him after. “Ah, see, but it’s only fair for _you_ to do the hard work if _I’m_ the one granting the favor.”

“Oh, is _that_ how it’s going to be?” Jimmy asks, the twitch of laughter in his lips spoiling the attempted glare.

“That’s my final offer,” Duncan rejoins, mock serious, and then it’s his turn to bite back a whine of desire as Jimmy wriggles his way down Duncan’s torso and manhandles his way beneath Duncan’s leg to settle between his thighs: familiar, proprietary. As if they’ve done this a hundred times before.

It’s almost too much, Duncan thinks, looking down at Jimmy nestled between his thighs. Jimmy has his arms tucked under Duncan’s knees and his hands on Duncan’s hips as if he might slip away if Jimmy doesn’t hold him in place. Duncan has no intention of going anywhere, but that doesn’t stop him enjoying the knowledge that Jimmy has no intention of _letting_ him be anywhere else. And Jimmy must see the pleasure of that knowledge in Duncan’s face because when he catches Duncan’s gaze he smiles, soft ...and just a bit predatory. He dips his head to press his lips to the tender flesh on the inside of Duncan’s left thigh, then the right. The stubble of his cheek rasps against sensitive skin and Duncan shivers with the simultaneous need to pull back from _too much_ and the yearning for _more_.

He grips the sheet in his hands and twists, squeezing his eyes shut against the sight because if he doesn’t stop looking he’ll come before Jimmy is any closer to _\-- ah, fuck,_ he thinks, digging his fingers in even harder as Jimmy runs his tongue up the underside of Duncan’s erection.

“I’m --” he says, his voice strangled with need.

“Good?” Jimmy asks, checking in even as he continues applying damp heat and pressure. He’s done this before, Duncan thinks. It’s nothing fancy, be he’s not at all hesitant. The part of his brain that’s still capable of full-sentence concepts realizes on some level he’s always assumed Jimmy was ... not ashamed, but maybe shy or hesitant about his same-sex desires. Since Duncan has known him, he’s only been with women (and only a very few, at that) and while he’s made no secret of his interest in men he also hasn’t advertised it. But he knows his way around a dick and balls -- because now he’s mouthing those, gently, too, and Duncan shakes his head with a moan that means _don’t stop don't stop_ \--

“ _Jesus_ , yes,” he manages, when a second “Good?” from Jimmy makes clear the question is a genuine one and Jimmy wants an answer. “Fuck, don’t -- don’t stop -- just --" Words fail him, finally, and Jimmy thankfully understands what he can't actually articulate and pulls back to replace mouth with hand just as Duncan feels everything pulling tight --so tight, and sweet, and agonizing -- with pleasure and he can’t stop his hips from jerking up as he comes, hard and long, still held firm by Jimmy’s weight between his thighs insisting that -- try as he might -- he can’t outrun desire, pleasure, release-- and the demand that he let Jimmy give, and share, those things with him.

“Fuck,” Duncan says again feeling the syllables slurred on his tongue, as if he were drunk, even though it’s barely half seven in the morning. “ _Fuck_.”

“That was, more or less, the idea,” Jimmy agrees, resting his chin on Duncan’s now-boneless thigh.

Duncan lifts a hand and places it on Jimmy’s head, like a benediction, brushing the sandy hair back from his forehead with lazy strokes of his thumb.

“And don’t you look pleased with yourself,” he murmurs, with a smile.

“Haven’t lost my touch,” Jimmy returns, pushing himself up on one elbow. “It’s been awhile.”

“Come up here where I can take care of you,” Duncan says, tugging on Jimmy’s fingers, slick with his own sweat and come. And Jimmy obliges. It’s nice he’s doing all the work of moving, Duncan thinks.

Jimmy leans in for kisses that Duncan willingly grants: slow and messy, with the taste of Duncan everywhere. It’s possessive, that transfer of taste and scent between them both making Duncan Jimmy’s and making Jimmy _his._ Duncan explores the shape of Jimmy’s mouth with his tongue, thinking about how Jimmy will carry the traces of sex with him no matter how many showers he takes, no matter where he goes and what else he does. He’ll be _Duncan’s_ now. And every time he tastes the echo of Duncan on his tongue he’ll remember.

Duncan considers going down on Jimmy -- because _God_ does he want to. But he also knows that he likes to take his time, and they don’t have much more of that this particular morning. So he slides his hand with teasing slowness down Jimmy’s flank toward where Jimmy is already rocking himself, lightly but steadily, against Duncan’s hip.. Jimmy had lingered over Duncan's nipples the night before so Duncan flicks Jimmy’s nipple with the edge of a thumbnail in the spirit of experimentation. Jimmy bites back a groan, so Duncan does it again.

“We should have this lovely nipple pierced,” Duncan says.

He’s said it without any forethought -- thinking more about how it had felt for Jimmy to play with his own piercing last night than anything else -- but as he says it the idea takes shape in his mind: a tiny gold hoop, one that sits flush with Jimmy’s skin barely noticeable under a shirt unless you know to look (and Duncan would always be looking). He feels Jimmy shudder, a fine ripple of need that rolls out under his skin.

“Oh, you like the idea? Duncan moves his thumb and finger to the other nipple and rolls up on an elbow so he can press his lips to the one he has just released.

"I -- yeah,” Jimmy says, on a strangled exhale. “It seems I do.”

“Well then,” Duncan says, lifting his head to suck Jimmy’s lower lip into a kiss. “You should come down to meet me in Aberdeen at the end of my tour. I know a gent on George St.” He drags his hand lower, seeking Jimmy’s erection -- _ah, there it is_ , warm and hard under his hand. Jimmy gasps, softly, against Duncan’s mouth. Duncan presses gently down along the length, stroking with his fingers, feeling the soft slide of skin and the prickle of damp curls. Jimmy thrusts up into the heel of Duncan’s palm. Duncan feels him, damp and hot against the inside of his wrist, and imagines being able to smell Jimmy there, all day, Jimmy’s scent worked into his skin.

“Mmm. Maybe I’ll just stay here, naked and boneless and stinking of sex, all day waiting for you to return from work and fuck me,” he says against Jimmy’s cheek as he shifts his hand and grips more purposefully, letting Jimmy set the pace as he pushes himself up into Duncan’s fist.  Jimmy shudders in response, biting back a groan.

He’s is right on the edge, and it only takes a moment or two -- just barely enough time for the two of them to improvise a rhythm together -- _pull, thrust, pull, thrust_ \-- before he’s coming sweet and hard in Duncan’s hand, over his belly, body caught for a moment in taut stillness, face pressed warm against Duncan’s neck, and then a shudder of release -- a melting in against Duncan’s body as if he’s is the only thing keeping Jimmy from simply dissolving and melting away across the mattress and onto the floor.

" _Hmmm_ ," Duncan hums in appreciation, gathering Jimmy in to keep him close. He knows they have to get up soon -- too soon -- but he’ll pretend they have all the time in the world for at least a few minutes more. 

“I should probably take a --” Jimmy lifts a hand and makes a general gesture toward the far end of the room.

“--shower?” Duncan supplies, capturing the hand and bringing the fingers to his lips for a kiss.

“Mm, that,” Jimmy presses his nose into the crook of Duncan’s neck again. “What would you say to joining me?”

“You realize the days when I could turn around and get it up again on a dime are long gone,” Duncan says dryly, though he can feel his body prickle with an echo of arousal.

Jimmy’s arm tightens around his waist. “Not for sex,” he murmurs. “Just for -- it’s been lonely.”

It’s the closest either of them has gotten to speaking of Fran. Of the emptiness she’s left in their lives -- especially Jimmy’s. Duncan suddenly remembers being on holiday with Fran, on Arran, nearly twenty years ago.  They had stayed in a hostel snuck into the women’s bathrooms to share a shower stall. He’d gone down on her under the hot spray, droplets of water in his eyebrows, her hands twined in his hair. After she'd come under his tongue she had sunk down into his lap, settling herself on him, around him, with a satisfied moan and rocked herself against him, clenching her muscles and holding him tight until he, too, had come.

He could remember her like that, now, finally: tanned and laughing, her body ample, fleshy, soft and full of life. Not the gaunt, papery look her skin took on in the last months of her illness. Closer to the Fran she was when Jimmy first met her. She had likely been pregnant with Cassie on that Arran holiday. Or became so shortly thereafter. Maybe it had been that day. They'd been having a lot of sex in those days. Not always carefully.

He shakes his head, releasing the memory. He and Jimmy may have more they need to say to one another, about Fran, but it can wait.

“Let’s get you clean, then,” he says, and lets Jimmy pull back from his arms to sit up. He immediately regrets the loss. "Home for tea you said?”

“Scout’s honor,” Jimmy says, touching his forehead in mock salute. And Duncan smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the hymn "[Seek Not Afar for Beauty](https://hymnary.org/hymn/H4BG1935/167)" by J. Savage Minot (1935), verse two:
>
>> Go not abroad for happiness: for see,  
> It is a flower blooming at thy door.  
> Bring love and justice home, and then no more  
> Thou'lt wonder in what dwelling joy may be.
> 
> P.S. Thank you to the readers who pointed out that I mis-remembered the country Cassie and Edison were moving to; I have corrected references to Brazil/São Paulo/Portuguese accordingly.


End file.
